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BIG PHYSICS, BIG QUESTIONS –

US army wants to fire swarm of weaponised drones from a missile

Could turn deadly

IAI

By David Hambling

The US army wants a missile that could shoot a swarm of weaponised drones over a target area.

The idea would be to equip existing missiles with the ability to dispense multiple “smart quadcopters” after launch. On release, the quadcopters would unfold, decelerate and fly off under their own power to attack different locations. A single missile could therefore knock out multiple targets.

The drone-firing weapon is outlined in a solicitation for design proposals from the Department of Defense. Unlike radio-controlled consumer drones, the quadcopters would guide themselves as part of a coordinated swarm. Each would carry an explosively formed projectile (EFP) warhead, firing a high-velocity slug of metal capable of destroying armoured vehicles. The proposal states the quadcopters should also be effective against fuel tanks and ammunition storage sites. They could even destroy artillery by targeting the gun barrels.

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Swarms of small drones are a cost-effective way of engaging multiple targets. The Pentagon recently revealed a demonstration of over a hundred Perdix drones flying autonomously as a swarm after being released from F/A-18 fighter jets. The army proposal for a “Cluster UAS [Unmanned Aerial System] Smart Munition for Missile Deployment” takes the idea further by launching drones with a missile rather than dropping them from a plane.

The green blobs are drones, swarming after being released from F/A-18 jets

Dept of Defense

Current armed drones are directly controlled by an operator, so these quadcopters could represent an escalation in autonomous weaponry. While there has been much concern about “killer robots”, such technologies are not specifically regulated by international law.

Robert J. Bunker of Claremont Graduate University in California, who has studied the use of lethal drones, doubts that quadcopters would be able to survive a missile launch because the blades can be fragile. “The cost of hardening such a munition for missile delivery may turn out to be prohibitive, yet it does offer some clear battlefield advantages with regard to tactical agility,” he says.

He suggests that a less fragile fixed-wing design like the Perdix might be a better choice, but says that developing an AI system to reliably identify and fly to targets would still be a challenge.

Once the army has solicited design proposals from contractors, there will be a prototyping phase. The prototypes will be tested on four main criteria – deployment after launch, controlled flight, autonomous target location and firing the EFP. If these are successful, the drone-dispensing warhead may ultimately find its way onto the battlefield.